After spending over 50 years on and around the water, I have realized that without strong fisheries laws and effective conservation measures, the future of salt water fishing, and America's living marine resources, is dim. Yet conservation is given short shrift by national angling organizations and the angling press. I hope that this blog will incite, inform and inspire salt water fishermen to reclaim their traditional role as the leading advocates for the conservation of America's fisheries.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

DUBIOUS ASSUMPTIONS

In a perfect world, biologists wouldn’t have to estimate the
size of fish stocks. Someone would
design a method that would count the number of fish, within 5% or so, with
absolute reliability that works across the full range of species.

In that same perfect world, anglers’ catch would be fully
documented. Everyone who went fishing
would report all of their catch—even when they caught nothing at all—using an
application that would calculate landings, catch per unit effort, mode and
landings compositions, and how everything changes year to year.

But we live in an imperfect world.

Stock assessments contain imperfections, even those for
data-rich stocks such as striped bass.
When dealing with data-poor stocks such as black sea bass, managers are
nearly flying blind. And when it comes
to estimating anglers catch, fishery managers are trying hard to improve their
accuracy, but still have a long way to go.

However, managers have to do their job with the information
on hand. That means that, at times, they
have to use the best available data, coupled with a large degree of caution, to
keep healthy stocks healthy and to rebuild those that have become overfished.

At times, that makes fishermen unhappy, particularly when
very conservative management measures are imposed to prevent overfishing what
people perceive to be a very abundant stock.

One of the best examples of that is black sea bass. In the northeast and mid-Atlantic, black sea
bass abundance appears to have increased substantially. Anglers are catching far more than they used
to, and voices in the recreational community frequently complain that
regulations are far too restrictive.

Fisheries managers fall back on available data when trying
to craft regulations. They know, and
will freely admit, that better data is needed to manage the black sea bass
fishery, and hopefully, after a benchmark stock assessment is completed late
this year, at least somewhat better data will be available. Until then, they will try to do the right
thing with the tools that they have.

Anglers, on the other hand, have no legal responsibility—moral
responsibility, of course, being something else altogether—to manage the stock
for sustainable harvest and future abundance.
All that a lot of them know is that they see a lot of fish when they go
fishing, and want to be able to up their kill.

Now, I probably should point out that it’s not my
“scientific bullshit.”

I’m not a
biologist. I just know some biologists,
and read the work put out by others. I have, over the years, developed a real
respect for some very bright people who do a very tough job for a very small
financial reward. I just report what they say.

They know that their work isn’t perfect.

We all know--or, at least, we should--that it’s the best work that the
available data and funding allow.

And we should admit that, with all its imperfections, it’s
quite a bit better than what the anti-science folks would have us depend on,
which are essentially any assumptions, unsupported by data, that would support
their argument to relax regulations.

More restrictive black sea bass regulations have seen
those assumptions spew out at a fever pitch.
They’re numerous and, ever so often, sort of amusing.

As a rule, the assumptions deal with estimates of
recreational harvest, either the old Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics
Survey, generally referred to as “MRFSS”, or the work-in-progress “MRIP”, which
is short for “Marine Recreational Information Program”.

The assumptions usually arise out of the fact that no
statistical estimate is perfectly precise—there is always some acknowledged
level of error—and the fact that MRFSS, in particular, contained a number of
statistical flaws. Folks with no real
knowledge of statistics, and no desire at all to learn how things actually
work, will harp on such inherent errors to smugly assume that
any data coming out of MRFSS or MRIP that doesn’t support their notion of what
the facts should be must be wrong.

That obviously caused a furor, and that’s when the
assumptions kicked in.

For years, Capt. Monty Hawkins, who owns and operates a
Maryland party boat, has been attacking black sea bass regulations, for various
reasons.

He has long assumed that the decline in the abundance of the black sea bass off Maryland has nothing to do with warming water temperatures, as
the National Marine Fisheries suspects, but on more
restrictive regulations that ultimately suppress spawning success.

“When sea bass perceive they’re under pressure at reefs close
to inlets where fishing pressure is heaviest and therefore begin spawning at
the youngest age possible; more distant reefs become overpopulated owing to
nearshore overproduction.

“Hence ‘surplus production, which is at the very heart of
fisheries management.

“Surplus production is what allows us to take any fish at
all. A true understanding of spawning
production, and not grasping convenient popular theory, is what will make or
break today’s early attempts at marine fisheries management.

“The evidence for elevated production is made plain in sea
bass management’s earliest years.
Scientists who manage dozens—dozens—of other fisheries scoff and blame
it on a ‘lucky year’ in production.”

But Capt. Hawkins doesn’t buy the 'lucky year' hypothesis for a minute. Fortunate enough to lack scientific training, or years working with similarly trained colleagues in the scientific field, he
knows what the real problem is.

“We taught sea bass
not to spawn until age 3 & the population plummeted.”

A lot of folks are happy to have Capt. Hawkins around to
explain that, because they know that you’d never hear a scientist say that we’d
have more black sea bass around if the size limit was dropped to nine inches. Yet the good captain’s assumptions of why
there used to be more fish off the Maryland shore clearly shows that it’s true…

He also loves to attack MRIP, and particularly its estimates of private boats’
recreational harvest, saying
things such as

“MRIP is making regulators crazy. The tragedy is unfolding before our eyes as
recreational fisheries are closed.

“I’m digging—looking.
Re-reading old works. What on
earth can I possibly use to show management how utterly bizarre their belief in
MRIP’s catch estimates seem to us? This
stuff is just NUTS to anyone working in the recreational fishing trade. There’s just No Way Private Boats from one
state can outfish all US Party/Charter.
It’s doubtful any one state’s Private Boats catch more sea bass than
just their own state’s Party/Charter fleet.
But NOAA believes the estimates.
After all, they paid for them ..and then get paid to use them…”

With respect to the for-hire estimates, Capt. Hawkins
complained that

“The good news is that someone at NOAA is actually looking at
[Vessel Trip Report] Catch Reports. These
are not broad two-month Catch Estimates.
We report, on a NOAA form, what we land everyday. Be nice if management were told what those
reports say instead of MRIP’s nonsense.”

Capt. Hawkins wants to see black sea bass regulations
relaxed, so he makes an argument that MRIP’s numbers are bad, and that private
boat anglers caught less than estimates show, saying that “It’s doubtful any
one state’s Private Boats catch more sea bass than just their own state’s
Party/Charter fleet.”

What if he’s right—just not in the way that he intended?

It appears that may well be the case.

Capt. Hawkins, in making his argument, never seems to consider the possibility that the private boat estimates aren't too high, but instead, that the charter boat estimates were far too low,
although that seems to be what’s driving the revised numbers for 2015.

Moreover, the finding that charter boat landings were higher
than originally believed came from the MRIP folks doing exactly what Capt.
Hawkins wanted—incorporating vessel trip report data into the landings
estimates.

It’s going to be tough for him to contest numbers derived,
at least partially, from a procedure that he endorsed, but I won’t be surprised
if he tries.

Because that’s how it is with assumptions. You always assume that you’re right, even
when the data says otherwise.

And it’s not just Capt. Hawkins who makes assumptions that,
to be kind, are not robustly supported by data.
He just leaves a good written record that contains some fine quotes.

At the most recent meeting of New York’s
Marine Resources Advisory Council, another perennial critic of MRIP estimates
got up and asked something like

“How could New York’s charter boat landings be eight times
higher than they were in past years?”

I felt like saying

“Maybe they finally got it right,”

but saw no reason to toss gas on that particular fire, even though my answer might well have been true.

The bad news is that there is still a real chance that the
MRIP numbers will be further revised; the good news is that New York will be
supervising the data gathering within the state this year, and it is very
likely that a lot of the bugs missed by the federal contractors will be
corrected by folks familiar with our local fishery.

Of course, that won’t fix the problem, since folks who make
baseless assumptions also assume that anyone they disagree with is wrong.